Water constitutes the largest portion, by weight, of a food animal. From about the time such an animal is slaughtered, its carcass begins to lose water, dry out or shrink. Shrinkage or weight loss, which begins on slaughtering, continues not only through the refrigeration and butchering steps in meat processing, but also during cooking, such as smoking, as well as while the smoked, hot meat is refrigerated thereafter. As a result of shrinkage, the meat prior to cooking generally becomes somewhat tougher and can be harder to butcher. As a further result of this shrinkage, the meat provider obtains a smaller amount of product to sell, and that product is of diminished quality. Because of shrinkage, the meat purchaser receives a smaller amount of product to cook. Cooking also results in shrinkage, and subsequent refrigeration after cooking of precooked products results in a still smaller amount of cooked material served for ultimate consumption.
Several processes are known in the art which are said to minimize or reverse shrinkage, at both the carcass and cooked meat stages. Among these are processes in which carcasses are sprayed or fogged with an aqueous solution, or in which a carcass is dipped into a water bath. In addition, it is well known to use aqueous curing compositions or pickles which assist in reducing meat shrinkage while preserving and flavoring the meat.
Hot cooked meat has been sprayed with cold water and aqueous brine solutions prior to refrigeration to cool the hot product and minimize refrigeration load, and to also try to minimize subsequent refrigeration shrinkage. While these sprayings are convenient to perform, cool the hot product, and reduce shrinkage during refrigeration to some extent, their cost in money and time has generally been found to be too excessive for widespread use.
For example, in one process, brine having a sodium chloride content of about 10-15 percent is cooled to about 20.degree. F. and then sprayed onto the smoked meat. Here, the excessive cost stems from the increased refrigeration load required to cool the brine to 20.degree. F., and from the loss of the refrigerated brine solution itself which is not recycled. In another process, smoked meat is showered with tap water for a three hour period entailing the use of about 3500 gallons of non-reusable water per smokehouse load.
Additionally, such spraying tends to reduce the meat's color which is normally dark red for cooked, cured products and also reduces the desirable smoked meat aroma. It would also therefore be beneficial if hot, cooked or smoked meat could be conveniently and inexpensively sprayed without loss of aroma or meat color.